A Big Fat Family Update

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Since it's been about a month since I've talked about anything productive in our lives, I thought I'd hop on over and give one massive life update for everyone in the family. I'm really terrible at writing in a journal so it's nice to be able to have this blog back to it's original purposes to help facilitate all of that. Since this update is going to be really long, I'll try to break it down to each person so that it will maybe all make more sense? Lets see if it works out.

Jay:

Oh man you guys, I just love this guy so much and am just so impressed with how much he has grown emotionally over the last few weeks. A few months ago I shared about his anxiety and what life is like with him on a daily basis, and those walls have been coming down full force. Yesterday we went on a nature walk for toddlers put on by our local parks and rec center and he was up there with the instructors the whole time leading the way, and only came back to me once when he needed help peeing on a tree. You guys, MY CHILD PEED ON A TREE. Most parents wouldn't be impressed with such behavior, but that's basically the equivalent of a normal non-anxious person running a marathon. It was huge.

He's also been really, really great at trying new foods. We always joke that Em is our favorite at dinner time because she'll eat anything, but that it evens out at bedtime and Jay is our favorite because he loves sleep. But Jay has been doing fabulous. He's been asking to eat bagels and strawberries, he's tried curry, and all sorts of new things I've made for dinner. He used to not even touch his food at the dinner table, ever, and now he's really open to exploring and trying and it's really been so much fun!

Jay has also had a hacking death cough for the last three weeks. We're told it's allergies and have been prescribed a regimen of allergy medicine, cough medicine, and albuterol treatments every four hours to keep his lungs open. He's actually been doing really great with his breathing treatments and holds the mask to his face all on his own. He used to scream his face off every time we took the machine out of the closet, and now it's a part of the day he looks forward to... who knew?

I think his eye patching has been going pretty well. As far as well can tell his eyes look a little straighter again. We don't go back to the eye doctor until the middle of next month, but I'm hoping for a good report. We haven't missed a single day of patching which I kind of consider miraculous.

Em:

There are so many fun things to say about Em right now, and I worry that I'm not going to remember all of them. First and foremost is that her speech is really coming along and it's so stinking cute. Whenever you put food on her highchair tray she says, "cue" for thank you, and I die every time. We're still waiting for me to stop forgetting to call Babies Can't Wait to get her signed up for at home speech and OT. So hopefully I remember to do that by the end of this week because I've been so lazy about it.

She got her leg braces two weeks ago and the first few days were rough. She hated them so much, and then we got to PT after 5 terrible days and they told us that the orthodic assistant that had fitted her for them had put them on the wrong legs, so then Derek and I kept putting them on the wrong legs... the entire thing was a mess. We have officially been putting them on the right legs since and she's doing much better. She still doesn't love to put weight on them because she's unsure, but for the right toys and motivation she does fabulous. Our PT tells us she should be walking in the next nine months... which is insane to wrap my mind around. I thought my original goal of, "if it happens within a year of getting the braces I'll be happy" was aggressive, but now we just have something really awesome to work toward. She'll be wearing them for about four hours a day everyday and will be working up to full time once she starts crawling on hands and knees.

Which brings me to the next point of, SHE'S GETTING UP ON HER HANDS AND KNEES! When we say, "Knees up!" She slides her knees under her and gets up! She'll hold it for a second or two, and then come back down. She really is such an amazing little girl.

Me:

Since the decline of my blogging career I've just been enjoying not having so many things on my plate. If you take a look at my planner it's chuck full of doctor appointments and various play dates which isn't anything different but it's full and sometimes overwhelming to look at. And then I think about how all those days used to be slathered with additional blogging things that I needed to tend to, and my load just feels much lighter.

I've read zero books for the month of May so far. I feel a little guilty about it, but not too guilty. I told myself a few weeks ago that I wanted to run a half marathon before my birthday, and so I'm planning on running this one in June. Today I thought about how cool it would be if I actually ran 25 miles on my 25th birthday... and now I'm working to see if I can hit that goal. It's always fun to see how my body can bounce back into running even though I start and stop with it so frequently.

On Saturday I did an eight mile run and it felt really good. My pace is pretty slow right now, so I'm working on adding speed workouts into my training to get my times down. Up until last night I hadn't dropped below a 10 minute pace since I ran my 5k last year, but last night I ran three miles at a 9:22 pace and am really hoping I can get it lower and lower. I told myself years ago that I wanted to run the Boston Marathon before I turned 30 and I'm starting to let myself think that it might be possible if I try really hard. At my peak running days I was totally at a Boston pace, so I know if I work hard I can get back there again.

I also was having a lot of back pain toward the end of blogging and I started seeing a chiropractor on a regular basis and the entire thing has actually been really life changing. I think that for me personally I have to feel like I'm accountable to someone for my health or else it's impossible for me to stay on track with anything (hence why I'm an obliger). We've set some health goals for me like stop sleeping on my stomach, exercise four days a week, drink more than 16 ounces of water in a day, not use my computer in bed (where I'm writing this right now #fail)... It's just nice to have that accountability and knowing that at any random time my chiropractor could ask me how any of those things are going... so it motivates me to always want to be able to give a good answer. I've also been having significantly less back pain... which is obviously the other bonus to seeing a chiropractor. Now if only I can convince Derek I need to see a massage therapist on a three times a week basis, and my life would probably be really fabulous.

Derek:

Firstly, Derek has been a huge champ to put up with my current running ambitions and watching the kids without complaint for me. I think he realizes that I'm probably a lot less of a crazy person when I physically remove myself from the children for an hour each day so it's a sacrifice everyone is willing to make.

One of the generals of the French Air Force were at Lockheed Martin a few weeks ago and since Derek is one of the few people there who speak French, he got to translate for him and the CEOs for a few days. It was really great for Derek to be able to put a face to his name with the upper management and he's had a few people tell him and that they want him to work for them right now... but unfortunately Lockheed Martin is in the middle of laying off 1,000 employees across the Marietta, Dallas, and Palmdale offices (Derek is immune thankfully), but it also means that we have to wait until August or November for any sort of promotion to happen. But we're about 95% positive that it's actually happening.

Derek is also doing amazing with his MBA. This guy has always worked and done school full time since we've been married and he is still holding onto his 4.0. We're over halfway done with his three year program, and are looking forward to graduation in October of 2017.